ABSTRACT

This chapter provides the World Bank’s involuntary resettlement policies presented in Cernea’s 1988 paper as its point of departure and examines more closely one particular case of forced resettlement in eastern Sudan following the construction of the Aswan High Dam in Egypt. The lack of clear objectives, consistent procedures and adequate resources for addressing resettlement has resulted in serious adverse effects on the people displaced, on the host populations at relocation sites, and on the environment. Prior to the resettlement of the Nubians, a population and land-holding survey had been carried out among them. A result of the government’s differential treatment of relocated Nubians and host Arabs was the intensification of ethnic tensions between the two groups. Where the Arabs fault the government for settling strangers on their traditional lands and granting them special privileges, Nubians argue that the government should never have permitted Arabs on the Scheme at all.